What are the implications of looking at contemporary art from the perspective of a place like Mexico? What does working from that country to create a collection of the art of our time entail? These questions stimulate a series of reflections of the Isabel and Agustin Coppel Collection.

Mexico is a fundamentally mestizo nation, with its vibrant miscegenation of ethnicities and cultures, and that defining feature of its history and identity is this exhibition’s conceptual point of departure. Mestizaje is never limited or reduced to two antithetical positions in direct confrontation, but rather generates a synthesis that reveals a third path: that of the hybrid, the diffuse, the blended. It is rooted in a dialectical relationship and a movement of things where there are no absolute, definitive categories, only a multiplicity of representations and a singularity of forms. Standing at this complex crossroad, this exhibition considers the idea of mestizaje or miscegenation as a way of thinking and positioning oneself in the world from a Mexican standpoint.

Point of Departure is structured around five concepts: Pedagogy, Identity, Territory, Economy and Community. These pillars constitute a frame of vision that offers us a complex, off-centre perspective.